We humans brush our pearly whites every day for the sake of good breath and a glistening smile.

Sadly, your cat isn’t as good at keeping up with oral hygiene as you are.

If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of a big yawn or exhale from your furry friend, you’ve likely picked up on this fact: cats don’t have the greatest smelling breath.

However, there’s a difference between “that’s not very nice” and “Phew! That’s rancid!”

If your cat has knock-out-a-buffalo breath, here are a few potential causes and what you can do about them.

Causes of Cat Bad Breath

As you’ve likely noticed, your cat uses her mouth for everything - eating, drinking, carrying things around the house, grooming, and chatting you up at 4:30 in the morning. That little mouth gets quite the workout, so it’s no wonder that things can go awry from time to time.

Cat bad breath can be caused by a number of things. To sleuth out the source of your cat’s halitosis, rule out the following possibilities.

Stuck Food

While your cat may not get spinach stuck in her teeth like we do, she can get other bits of goodies trapped between those pearly whites. Check your cat’s mouth to see if she has a piece of kibble or critter (pardon the crudeness, but cat’s are natural hunters) wedged between her teeth.

Simply dislodging it and letting her mouth return to a clean state can be all you need to do to solve the cat breath issue.

Injury

Given how much use your cat’s mouth gets, it’s common for her to suffer an occasional oral injury. Take a peek inside the jaws of the beast and look for any red or swollen areas. If you notice an injury and there is pus or discharge, take your cat to the vet. She may need help beating back that infection.

Plaque Build Up

This one should sound familiar - it’s what we hear about any time we go to the human dentist!

Cats can get plaque build up, too, and it can cause some serious feline halitosis (that’s a real condition, by the way).

If you or your vet notice significant plaque build up around your cat’s gum line, it may be time to start brushing Fluffy’s teeth.

Trouble Troubleshooting?

If neither of these two issues is present, it’s possible there’s an underlying cause to your cat’s stinky breath that you can’t see.

Other causes of bad cat breath include:

Allergies - your cat may be allergic to something in her food.

Trapped baby teeth - if your cat is on the younger side, she may be having an issue with a kittenhood tooth.

With proper hydration and diet checked off the list, it’s time to focus on maintaining a clean mouth.

Get in the habit of brushing your cat’s teeth once per week. It may take time to build up to this frequency, but it will be well worth it to avoid needless pain and suffering for your cat and expensive vet bills for you.

Does your cat have a winning smile? Snap a pic and tag us on Instagram with #PrettyLitterCats!

Rai Cornell

Author

3 Responses

Rai Cornell

May 18, 2018

@Diana your Toby sounds like a pretty clever kitty!

@Sandy – so happy to hear that your fur baby is doing better! What a great fur momma to keep working to find out what was making your girl sick.

Diana Ellison

May 18, 2018

Luckily my Toby has always used a chew toy after he eats. Have you ever heard such a thing. He leaves it in the dry food and the other won’t eat. She just looks at the toy.

Sandy Pister

May 18, 2018

I adopted a seven year old Himalayan from a breeder. She started losing weight, was anemic, but was still eating. After spending thousands of dollars on vet bills, blood work, I found out her problem stemmed from her mouth and teeth. Six of her teeth had to be removed. Her anemia improved, her energy improved and she is perfectly fine. She could have died, all from systemic poisoning in her body from her mouth.